it.gen.nz

I’m away from New Zealand for a few weeks, visiting my extended family. Here in this sceptred isle the weather is cold and I’m already missing Wellington. But the company here is great, and I’m actually looking forward to Christmas.

I’m doing some interesting things to stay connected while I’m travelling. There’s no way you want to pay our outrageous data roaming charges, so the iPhone “Data Roaming” option is firmly off. But there are things you can do. The house I’m staying in at the moment, for instance, has wireless broadband but it’s all locked down by my host’s employer. So, I’ve bought a little wireless access point with me – also locked down hard – and connected it directly to his router. That means that the four different wi-fi enabled gadgets I’m carrying can all get online. I bought one of these when I arrived but I haven’t needed it yet.

As to those who might say that I should just leave everything behind and ignore the Net for while – maybe I should. But, then, who would pay my bills while I’m away or keep my business running? And how would I have managed the Skype teleconference I needed to have on my arrival?

For years Apple’s Mac OS X has been making slow inroads into Windows’ installed user base. But it’s slow progress. Windows is still massively dominant on the desktop.

That’s the context for today’s story about Apple’s venture into smartphones, the much-hyped iPhone. The sales of iPhones exceed the sales of every type of Windows Mobile smart phone put together.

The article linked above speculates as to why this might be. It suggest two reasons, both of which come down to developer preference: one is that Windows Mobile runs on a wide variety of hardware and that makes life hard for developers; and the other is that the iPhone is just sooo cool. That’s right, it’s the third party applications developers who are driving the adoption of the iPhone and deserting Windows mobile.

This is significant because we are seeing Microsoft being taken on and beaten handsomely – not just little chips away at a huge installed user base. It must be an unfamiliar feeling for them.

Today on Radio New Zealand National I talked about changing your ISP. The subject was prompted, in part, by yet another failure at Xtra – and by the Consumer magazine survey which says, every year, that Xtra delivers the worst customer satisfaction of all Internet providers.

And these Internet failures hurt New Zealand businesses. I was talking to a business at the weekend which had been prevented from getting their business done for a while. I asked why they don’t change providers and I was told: we don’t know how. Sue, this one’s for you.

I’ve written some instructions on what you do to change ISPs. I’m going to keep them live on the front page of this blog for a while, near the top right. And – it’s easy. Don’t let your ISP get away with bad service – vote with your feet.

Read on for my speaking notes, or download the audio as ogg or mp3. (more…)

Like the roof on my house, the DNS has holes. A really bad DNS hole got patched earlier this year – well, mostly patched. I say “patched”, because the solution isn’t very good, it’s just dried up the worst of the problem, but the fix won’t last.

Kim Davies of IANA has written a very readable account of the problem in DNS security. It makes for scary reading. The bad guys will get control of the Internet unless we deal to this problem.

I have bitten the bullet and agreed to have a new roof on my house. Just patching the old one won’t keep the water out any more – it just comes through another place every time it rains. The DNS needs a new roof as well, and it’s called DNSSEC. It will involve lots of Internet folk in real work, but we need to get on with it.

Great headline, isn’t it – I wish I’d thought of it. It’s from El Reg, a UK online newspaper, decrying the expansion of blog front pages.
It seems that more and blogs – and web pages in general – are putting images and other things on their front pages which serve to slow down the page loading.

I thought I’d measure a few front pages of web sites, using a web based service:

Here are some blogs and other web pages:

This matters because it makes the pages less usable to dial up or mobile users. So, if you have a web site with a big, heavy, front page you are effectively saying that you don’t want people with slow lines or who are using mobiles to surf there. That may be a valid decision for you, but you need to be aware that you are making it. And for many companies, and especially for government departments, it’s just not OK to disenfranchise people by effectively cutting them out of your website. Now, the government is very aware of this issue and has a set of web standards which departments have to conform to – and those standards say that pages mustn’t be too big.

Books are a very old technology which is still going strong. And why shouldn’t it? Today on Radio New Zealand National I take a look at books and their relationship with the Internet. Read on for my notes or download the audio as ogg or mp3. (more…)

Today on Radio New Zealand National I talked about Google’s new mobile phone platform, called Android. The first Android phone has just gone on sale in the US. It’s a very interesting move by Google and will probably result in dropping mobile phone prices. Can’t be bad.

Read on for my speaking notes, or download the audio as ogg or mp3.

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Today on Radio New Zealand National I talked about a very bad piece of law that the government and the music business have foisted on us all, and about the fact that the government appears now to have cold feet about it. I’m referring to Section 92A of the Copyright Act, inserted by the recent copyright amendment, and it says that ISPs have to cut people off the Internet if a music company accuses them of copyright infringement. There’s no trial, no proof, and no accountability on the record companies to get it right. This provision was inserted into the Bill by the government after the Select Committee had told it to do the opposite and then passed by a large majority in the House.

The Minister of ICT announced yesterday that this provision will be put ‘on hold’ for four months. (It can be put on hold because it requires enabling regulation; effectively Cabinet can decide when and if it comes into force.) He’s looking for submissions on this. Don’t be shy – write to your MP, badger the parties who want your vote, and support InternetNZ which will be lobbying hard for MPs to do the Right Thing.

Read on for my speaking notes, or download the audio as ogg or mp3.

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Today on Radio New Zealand National I responded to the extraordinary comments of TelstraClear’s Chief Executive, Alan Freeth, that there is no point of providing fast broadband in New Zealand because we’d only waste it. And he doesn’t like Hokitika. His views can’t be anything to do with trying to protect his existing network in the main cities, can they?

Read on for my speaking notes, or listen to the audio download in mp3 or ogg.
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I’ve ranted before about the futility and stupidity of email disclaimers that so many people and companies use. Here’s one that someone puts on his email which makes that same point through humour:

This email is for the intended recipient only. If you are not the
intended recipient you must burn your computer, while standing on one
foot and chanting the entire jabberwocky.
The opinions expressed here are not necessarily the opinions of the
person who expressed them.

Yep. All email disclaimers are as silly as this one, it’s just that the author of this one understands that.